Commercial paper.



PERCY MORRIS AND JOHN OLIVER-BRYANT, or nonnon, ENGLAND, Assrenons ro WHITEHEAD, MORRIS & COMPANY, LIMITED, or ronn'on," NGLAND;

No Drawing.

To all whom it may concern: H H

Be it known that we, PERCY MORRIS and JOHN OLIVER BRYANT, both subjects of the King of Great Britain, and both residing "at 9 and 10 Fenchurch street, London, England, have invented newand usefuliIm provements in Commercial Paper; and we do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of'the invention, which will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to' make and use the same.

i This invention relates-to the printing and producing of checks, drafts, letters of credit, promissory notes and the like, hereinafter referred to as drafts, in which an amount, and (or) other matter, is written, generally by one of the parties thereto. p

The practice of fraudulently altering'the amount or the written matter on drafts is very common and the present invention has for its object to render the alteration more diflicult to accomplish than heretofore ,without showing on the face of the document that the alteration has been made.

It is usual in a draft to have some safety ground which will not interfere with the distinctness of the matter written thereon, and this safety ground most frequently consists of the name of the bank or other information in very small words. Various methods and processes have been used for printing this safety ground work, and the principal method hitherto in vogue, has been to use fugitive inks, and inks made with anilin dyes.

These inks have, however, always been in the nature of printing inks, that is to say, inks which have had the necessary consistency or oiliness which has made them adaptable for the ordinary processes of printing. The use of ordinary writing ink, in the same chemical condition as that in which it is used for writing, has not been contemplated, and the very fact of using a printing ink as heretofore, in itself provides the possibility of altering the check or note, on which the amount of other matter is written in ordinary writing ink.

A common method of altering a draft involves a differential treatment of the safety ground and of the written matter thereon, and consists in first treating the safety ground with a morda-nt that will not affect the written matter, and in then dis- Application filed July 3042114, S eriallY o SSQI'YQi COMMERCIAL PAPER Y I Specification of Letters Patent. lgfl g fgd J 11. 1918 solving, bleachiligbr washing ofithe'writlten matter with a suitable chemical, therebyleavinga more or less clean safety ground toflbe againfwritten on. .Now, according to 'the'pre'sent invention the ink in which thesafetyground is' produced is'of a nature substantially similar .to that usedforwriting thereon, and in sub- 's'tantially the same chemical condition in whichit is used"f0r writing, and without any thickening or other doctorin'g, so that if an attempt'ismade to -alter the draft, thenwhatever change is produced in the safety groundf'will also be produced in the matter written thereon, whereby a difierentreatment, as described above, is no't possi e.

The simplest and fmost "practical method of carrying out the present invention is to produce or print the safety gr'ound'with an ink" in'aqueous solution such, for enample, as'any. ordinary fluidin'k that, isused for writing,-say one of the well known proprietary inks, 'andpreferablyone of the blue or blue-black inks. Ordinarily writing inks, z. e. inks in" aqueous solution havehot without being doctored or modified to make themsuitable for this purpose, such as by thickening with oil, glycerin, or other ve-' hicle. If, however, any doctoring or modification of any kind whatsoever of the ink takes place to enable it to be used for printing, and it is to be used for the purpose of prmting the groundwork, the very fact of the doctoring offers an opportunity for a differential treatment of the groundwork and of the written matter thereover. If, however, the ink used for the groundwork is identical with the ink used for writing, this draw back is avoided and the possibility of such differential treatment is removed.

Another possible and prior method for defeating alteration is to modify the printing ink used for the groundwork to render it suitable for writing purposes, but this as a general proposition would involve introducing and marketing a special writing ink, and is not a practical proposition. I

Any difficulty in producing a good impression, with an aqueous or writing ink, of a safety ground such as ordinarily adopted, 2'. 6. one composed of a fine linework design. or informatory matter in very small UNITED STATES rAr nr orricn.

hitherto been used for printing purposes 4 type can be overcome and'a good impression produced by usin on the printing machine between the distr'- uting drum and the inking bed or table, a distributer or distributers (or vibrator or vibrators) havin a plush or like soft absorbent carrying sur ace. Any difliculty in producing a good impression, with untreated aqueous or writing ink, of a safety ground work such as ordinarily used on checks, 2'. e. fine line work or informatory matter in small type, may be overcome by the following means. In the printing machine, a vibrator, oscillating between the distributing drum and the inking bed, has a plush or other absorbent surface; the distributers for distributing the ink, on the surface of the inking bed may have a plush, rubber or like surface. To prevent any chemical modification of the ink, the vuse of any metal surfaces, with which the ink would react, is avoided. Thus, if'a trough feed is used, the trough may be-made of glass, also a glass inking slab may be vemployed and if a metal printing surface is used, it may be coated with platinum.

A further modification of the present invention comprises the production and use of a groundwork in a plurality of colors, one or more of the printings of such groundwork being printed in an aqueous ink such as writing ink, which has not been dootored or otherwise modified to change it into a printing ink. The purpose and utility of such multicolor groundwork will be apparout by the following example. If a groundwork is produced in, say, two or three colore, 5o chosen and printed as -to present the appearance of a neutral tint, and if one of these colors is in ordinary writing ink, and the other colors are in printing ink, or colored writing inks, then if the writing on the draft is altered the consequent alteration of the portion of the groundwork in writing ink will visibly alter the color and appearance of the groundwork on the draft.

Claims:

1. Sheetmaterial, provided with a printed ground of ordinary fluid writing ink and adapted to receive characters, applied in vordinary fluid writing ink, of substan- .tially the same chemical composition.

2;. Paper, provided with a printed ground of ordinary fluid writing ink and adapted to receive characters applied in the same identical ink.

3. Commercial paper, provided with a safety ground applied to its surface with ordinary fluid writing ink, substantially the same invchemical composition and condition as that in which it is used for writing, whereby alteration, without detection, of matter subsequently written thereon, is prevented.

PEROY MORRIS. J OHN OLIVER BRYANT. Witnesses:

J OHN E. BoUsrrELo, C. G. REDFERN.

Copies of this patent may be obtained torfive cents each, by addressing the Commissioner of Patents,

Washington, D. C. 

